They shouldn't be! After all, in a lot of ways, no matter what our purpose in creative practice -- whether for research or not -- it nonetheless is a form of research. We are experimenting with art, trying to be better, get better. It's always research in an implicit sense. What makes it explicitly research is when it is incorporated into a defined methodology that allows us to explore and respond to specific research questions, and to communicate how the practice helps us answer those questions. Ideally, it should be a symbiotic relationship.

Also, who defines what is "good"? The academy? Research councils? Consumers? Prize committees?

Depends on the research question, and whether or not it is applicable as research.

I think this is a key element in practice-based research in media in general - if we look at the creative practice as analogous to data (in the sciences, for example), then we still have to make the contribution to knowledge explicit through a statement of research and/or exegesis. The sciences don't just throw raw data at each other and ask one another to figure out what its contribution is - that's what papers and reports are for. I can tell you a lot of them don't like writing it up either! But at its core, isn't that what research is -- collecting data, analyzing it, and communicating it explicitly to others in the field (and even outside the field)?

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